


Overture: Bridge to Everywhere

by Xela



Series: Haven Verse [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Domestic, Kid Fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-08
Updated: 2011-01-08
Packaged: 2017-10-14 14:19:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/150117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xela/pseuds/Xela
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are telling moments, in retrospect. But in retrospect a lot of things become clear.  The first 17 years of Mer's life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Overture: Bridge to Everywhere

**Author's Note:**

> This is a bridge between A Haven in a Heartless World and the next story in this series, Divergent Horizons. Haven happens when Mer is 4.
> 
> Mer-bear is Mer; Mer Bear is Mer's stuffed bear she's had since she was very tiny (so named because every time someone tried to take it she'd hug it fiercely and say “Mer Bear!”).

-3.

Dean gets hurt on a hunt because Sam isn't there. Sam is off in California being Joe College and playing at normal and Dean doesn't have anyone to watch his back. For the first time he has a new scar that no one knows the story to.

Dean sews himself up, stitches rough and uneven from the awkward angle, and gets blindingly drunk.

0.

Karen Ivers isn't a bad person. She's got hopes and dreams and a ten-year plan. She's _going places._ Places far away from her dead-eyed Dad and her miserable Mother and the run-down house they're all tied to.

She pulls out a roll of bills from her hiding place, carefully hidden tips and change painstakingly scraped together over the years. It isn't a lot but it's almost enough. She stares down at her small pile of treasure and wonders. Choices stretch before her, possibilities upon possibilities, so many she feels choked with them.

The child inside her shifts and Karen knows she can't keep it.

.1

Mer is one month old when Dean learns he's a father. He's laid up with a broken leg and bored out of his mind when a blonde he barely remembers makes sure he'll never be bored again.

Dean stares mutely at the woman, arms heavy, as she babbles through an explanation of why she can't keep her. Which makes no sense to Dean. Her? Her _who?_ The woman looks at him, tears in her eyes but determination in her soul and shuts the door to the motel room with finality.

The child in his arms shifts, and he knows he could never give her up.

.6

Mer is six months old when the Demon comes after her. They're holed up in a heavily-fortified hotel room, him, Mer and Dad. Sigils on the walls, salt lines around every door and even the bed.

They think they've got everything covered...except they forgot about the air vents, and that demons are not above mortal means of getting what they want. Something puts Dean and John to sleep while a supernatural breeze interrupts the salt lines. There's a dark, swirling cloud hovering over Mer when Dean startles awake. His shotgun fires before he's fully aware. The report wakes up Dad, and Mer starts screaming. The thing howls and flies towards Dean, only to be met with a double-hit of rock salt. The windows rattle and paintings fall off the wall and the demon disappears up through the vents and away.

Dean picks up Mer, terror making his heart pound loud in his ears. She screams with infant fury, and by silent agreement they pack up and head for Bobby's like Hell itself is on their ass.

1.

Mer is one when they meet Whitney Steton. She's the only survivor of a vicious attack by creatures Dean has never seen before, and hopes never to see again.

He can't seem to get a response out of Whitney in the aftermath of the attack. She's nearly catatonic, tears tracking down her face. Dean doesn't think she can handle the clean up, so he bundles her up and leads her to the car. He checks on Mer, sleeping under his jacket in her car seat, a jerry-rigged phone/baby monitor attached to her, programmed to dial 911 should he be gone for more than two hours. It's also programmed to call his phone if it registers a certain wail-like decibel. (It's worked well so far. Dean refuses to leave his daughter with Pastor Jim or—God forbid—Bobby, and most of the major cities have night care.)

He still gets two beds by rote, so he settles the civilian where Sam should be. She's shivering badly, is probably in shock, so Dean drapes all the blankets in the room over her shoulders. He's just gathering his wits about him, trying to formulate a game plan balancing a catatonic civilian, Mer, three human bodies and two supernatural ones, when Mer wakes up. Loudly. Her screams jar something in Whit, who throws herself off the bed and scrambles backwards until her back hits the wall, breathing harshly. Mer refuses to be consoled.

Dean has no idea where to even start with this clusterfuck so he does the only thing he can think of. He puts Mer in Whitney's lap.

Dean holds his breath, realizing at the last minute how incredibly _stupid_ it is to put his child in the lap of a woman in the middle of a meltdown.

It's like watching a reaction shot in slow motion. Her head tilts down slowly, and she blinks at the squirming little person in her lap. She brushes her fingers through Mer's fine, blond hairs. A tear drops onto Mer's head, and Whitney slowly gathers the baby in her arms and tucks Mer up against her chest. Mer hiccups, but settles down, her fingers curled tightly in Whitney's shirt.

When Whitney opens her eyes, Dean takes a step back at the pain he can see in them. She's here now, no more hiding. She opens her mouth to speak, but Dean cuts her off.

"I'll take care of it." Her face crumples again, a fresh flood of tears hitting her, and she nods. Dean escapes into the bathroom to clean himself and get away from the overwhelming crush of loss. He's halfway through his shower when it occurs to him that he left his kid with a woman he hasn't even really met.

2.

Mer is two when she moves something for the first time. With her mind.

She's in the midst of the Terrible Twos, which Dean had always thought might be the humor of tired parents. (Sammy was a serious, easy two-year-old.) It's not. Mer is a lil holy terror, face twisting when she doesn't get what she wants and refusing to do what they ask her for no apparent reason. Whit repeats "it's a normal and important stage in a child's development" like a mantra, over and over and over again.

"NO!"

"Mer," Dean grits out. She knocks her apple juice over.

"NO! GAPE!"

"You asked for apple."

"GAPE!"

"You can have that after you drink your apple juice," Dean says reasonably. Mer's face scrunches up and she starts turning red. Dean steels himself to bear another angry outburst...except Mer's face smoothes out and she looks almost smug. The grape juice floats by his head. Mer giggles and claps, all smiles now.

"Gape!" She picks up her sippy cup and starts drinking the apple juice just to be contrary.

"Holy shit."

\---

It's like the floodgates are open after that. When Mer throws a temper tantrum they have to deal with her AND things flying around the room. She also starts responding to their emotions, which is the point where Dean throws in the towel and calls his father.

Whit thinks John Winchester is hot in that rugged, non-nonsense, alpha kind of way. And while he's way too intense for her, she can't help but admit her own attraction to the man. But it's clear he's got bigger things weighing him down than she can help him with. Still, a girl can dream.

John and Dean pour through texts trying to figure out if Mer's safe. They subject her to all kinds of cleansing and revealing rituals, trying to make sure nothing evil is influencing her. All they get is a fussy baby and a lingering stench in the living room. And Mer's powers continue to grow. She alternates between clinging to her grandfather and getting as far away from him as she can. It's one of the ways they gauge her development, and her episodes are becoming more and more frequent every day. When she spends most of the day crying herself to sleep John finally decides to take her to see Missouri.

\---

Missouri Mosely is _awesome,_ wooden spoon and attitude aside. Dean gets to see his daughter smile for the first time in weeks when they cross the threshold of her house. She also makes a killer apple pie. And she seems to have a pretty good grasp on what's going on with Mer.

Dean learns all sorts of meditation and focusing techniques Missouri swears will help Mer learn to control herself _and_ keep her out of Dean's head. Dean abruptly realizes that _his kid is psychic_ and has a panic attack. There's so much shit in his head that Mer should never, ever find out about it's not even funny. So Dean buckles down and doesn't made snide quips about navel gazing and deep breathing. He breathes, and he relaxes, and he's Christopher Reeve in _The Village of the Damned_ imagining brick walls and ocean waves. Missouri smacks him upside the head for that one.

When they're finally ready to leave, Missouri sends them home with symbols for the doors and windows, spells for the walls, and other things designed to help keep Mer sane while she learns to navigate the world. They don't block out everything—Missouri gives them a long, long speech on how that would be Very Bad For Mer's Development—but they'll create a safe haven for her. And Dean. Missouri looks at him pointedly, and Dean grins because he has no idea what she's talking about. Really.

He also doesn't know that Dad's worried about this turn of events, that it's somehow tied to Sam (wow, is THAT still a painful subject), and he's feeling guilty. Dad ends up staying with them for two whole weeks, taking care of Mer, etching protections into the very foundation of the house and starting some super secret project in her room that Dean's not allowed to know about.

Dad disappears without a word, and Dean spends a lot of time staring at the family portrait he'd painstakingly painted on Mer's wall. Dean runs his fingers over the curve of Sam's smile and swallows the lump in his throat.

3.

Mer has just turned three when she starts talking _a lot._ In fairly complete sentences to people they can't see. Dean checks every ward, hauls Bobby, Dad AND Missouri to the house to check everything twice. There are no demons, ghosts, shades, ghouls or other creatures within a five-block radius of their house. None within a mile by the time they're done. It's still really freaky to watch Mer suddenly stop playing, head cocked to the side and eyes focused on something no one else can see.

She has a veritable entourage of invisible people. At least five that Dean and Whit can discern amongst them. Whit makes a crack about invisible friends, except they're not Mer's _friends._ Mer actually can't stand most of them. Dean's almost ready to take her to a child psychologist when she gets into a screaming match with someone named Errol and then refuses to talk for a week. Nothing Dean or Whit say or do can get her to say a word. She stomps around, dragging Mer-Bear with her and looking like thunderclouds are chasing after her.

When she does deign to speak again, it's to announce to the air that she'll only talk to 'Annie' because the rest of them are meanie poopoo heads. Which makes NO SENSE to Dean because where did she learn 'poopoo head' and shouldn't invisible friends be—excuse Dean if he sounds like a broken record— _friendly?_

A couple of months pass when Dean wakes up from a deep sleep without any reason. He stumbles out of bed and makes his way to Mer's room without really processing his motives. He can see a strip of pale light from under her doorway. Dean frowns; it's four in the morning. Mer's voice, muffled by the door, sounds happy and excited. It's only when Dean hears what sounds like an answering voice, low and indecipherable, that he fully wakes up.

He bursts into the room ready to protect his child. Only the room is empty, and Mer is sitting on her desk rearranging the photographs on her cork-board. Dean sweeps the room again, still wary. There's a gun stashed in a compartment built into the wall, too tall for Mer to reach, loaded with silver bullets. He calculates how long it would take him to get to it.

“Hey, baby girl. What'reya doing?” Dean asks, moving slowly towards her. Mer looks up and grins.

“'m ready!” she announces. Dean glances at her little board and notices there's a newly bare patch on one of the corners.

“What are you ready for?” Dean asks, picking her up. She blinks at him sleepily, a pleased smile on her face. “Mer? What are you ready for?” She puts her hands on either side of Dean's face and giggles, like they've just shared a joke. For a second, Dean swears he sees a woman standing in the corner watching them, but Mer distracts him with a sloppy kiss on the nose.

“Atta!” she declares happily, a brilliant grin on her face. Dean can't help but grin back even while he makes a note to call Bobby and ask him what the hell an 'atta' could be.

She stops talking to her 'friends' as abruptly as she started, and the incident fades in Dean's mind with time.

4.

Mer is four when she she meets Sam for the first time, steals his heart and puts his picture in the empty space of her cork board. The last vestiges of Stanford drift away and Sam lets them go willingly. They all get caught up in something way bigger than they could possibly know. It binds them together even as it plants the seeds that will rip them apart.

5.

Mer is five when she breaks her arm. Dean feels it all the way in Michigan, a slash of physical pain that's not his own, but he knows the feeling of a broken bone. Sam picks up on it moments later, a wail of psychic pain abruptly muffled. Dean flips the car around as Sam starts scrolling through their contacts, looking for someone to take over the hunt. They can both feel Mer trying to be brave for them. Dean grits his teeth and the engine revs ineffectually as the doctor sets her arm, a hundred miles too far away.

They find Mer morosely eating ice cream and sporting a bright pink cast. Mer hates pink, and it's depressing her more than actually having a broken arm, which she thinks is pretty cool. All the kids in her play group are going to be so jealous, and all the parents are going to pay attention to her. Whit tells them in hushed tones that the doctor had just assumed Mer'd want a pink cast, and they had both been too busy keeping their cool to notice.

Dean spends the rest of the day hanging out with his kid and catering to her every whim. Really, he just wants to make that hang-dog expression go far, far away. He's just beginning to wonder where Sam got off to when he comes home, a bag in hand.

"You ready for this?" he asks with a grin, dumping out a tableful of arts and craft supplies. He also has a sheaf of Star Wars stickers with him. Mer looks at him like he's her hero and Dean...Dean projects the naughtiest things he can imagine at Sam, careful to keep them very, very focused. Sam blushes bright red and stammers through an argument about how to use the puff paint and whether they should leave space for Mer's friends to sign. Sam sends Mer off to get Whit so she can join in the fun. As soon as she's gone, he throws a handful of glitter at Dean.

"Dude! You gave me art herpes!" Dean complains. Sam smirks and gives Dean a kiss that curls his toes and leaves him a little befuddled in the aftermath.

***

A package arrives for Mer one day. Whit gets it, wonders who's sending Mer mail, and forgets about it as soon as she puts it on the side table. Mer stares at the package for three days. No one touches it, moves it, acknowledges its existence but her.

The fourth day, Mer waits until all of her parents are busy and takes the package to her room. It's from her grandfather, though he's dead and didn't mail it. There's still a sense of him lingering on the packaging, faint but there. It makes her sad.

She carefully cuts into the top of the box and pulls out what's inside, making sure the protective cover stays on the book. A shiver of fear and revulsion crawls over her skin.

She hides the book at the bottom of her Emergency Bag—they each have one, clothes and essentials packed into one duffel in case they need to make a fast break for it one day. She shoves the bag back under her bed and lets the memory escape into the air.

The book sits quietly at the bottom of the bag through the years, waiting.

 

6.

Mer is six when Sam almost kills a man in Reno. It's not as funny as it should be.

They're coming off of a difficult hunt, something like a chupacabra on steroids that almost kills Dean. They're both on edge, brimming with life and the need to celebrate that fact. They stop off at a bar for a couple of drinks. They're usually more subtle than this. It's a game, the way they brush against one another, how Dean charms the waitress while his fingers skim along the side of Sam's legs.

But this is different. This is hot looks, eye-fucking across the room, suggestive hints whispered directly into lust-addled minds. Dean bends over the pool table and Sam watches the way he handles the pool cue, the curve of his ass. Dean spreads his stance a little wider, just to taunt him, and Sam's just about had enough when some jackass 'accidentally' stumbles into Dean and sends him crashing to the floor.

The man calls Dean a fag and Sam loses it. He doesn't remember anything, but the next thing he knows Dean is dragging him off the man, whose face is a mass of bloody tissue. He's broken several bones in his hand.

Dean patches him up, his worry a constant buzz in the back of Sam's head. Sam kisses Dean gently. In thanks. In apology. In promise. It won't happen again.

A part of Sam knows he's lying. He thinks a part of Dean knows too.

***

Two figures swathed in shadows watch a young girl spin underneath the stars, her laughter ringing through the night. She spins around, her dirty-blonde hair floating like a halo around her. She twirls until she can't keep her balance, but before she falls strong arms wrap around her and life her up.

"Watch it, Mer-bear!"

"Da-ad!" The girl laughs as her father spins her around, her legs swinging in the air. She breaks free and starts twirling on her own the moment her feet touch the ground. "Spin with me!" The father rolls his eyes but throws his arms wide and twists on his heel, head tilted up towards the sky.

The girl whirls until she can't stay upright, giggling all the way to the ground, sprawled out as if she owns the world. The man joins her soon after, panting from his exertions.

"You think Van Gogh did this before he painted?" the girl asks.

"Has Damien been giving you the good stuff again?"

"Dad! Doesn't the spinny sky look all _Starry Night?"_ She traces swirls with her fingers, sketching the masterworks she's learning about in school onto the sky.

"Hmmm. I dunno, I lost my buzz. Guess we'll have to try again." The laughter continues, loud in the quiet night, and they spin wildly on the front lawn. Their noise brings another man and a woman out of the house.

"Well I'll be damned. Dean finally lost his mind for real," the woman mutters. She has a grin on her face in contradiction of her words.

"Dean, what are you doing?" the tall man asks, a frown distorting his features.

"Come on, Sammy! We're making the whole sky into shooting stars!" The girl's father grabs the frowning man and spins him around, their feet moving in quick staccato steps. They lean away from each other, but they are each other's anchors, hands clasped firmly together. Their eyes never leave each other.

"Whit! Don't just _stand_ there! Spin!" the girl orders. Laughing, the woman does as she's bid, spinning as fast as she can.

The figures watched this odd, patchwork family twirl on the lawn together.

"They seem...happy," one says. His speech is stilted and halting, as if he is unaccustomed to speaking at all.

"They are," the other says softly. Wistfully. The corners of her mouth turned down in an expression of upset. She knows this will not last.

"This should be protected," the first says with conviction. His mentor's frown deepens. He can see pain and regret within her for things they have done and things they have yet to do. For the things they will fail to do.

"That which should be and that which is are too often different. We will do what we must."

 

7.

Mer is seven when she befriends a boy named Dan. He's quiet and shy, never quite meets anyone's eyes and only smiles for Mer. She talks to him in secret tones, soft and intimate. Dan ends up spending a lot of time at their house, and Mer never asks to go to his, which strikes them as odd but no one really thinks anything of it.

Mer doesn't have a lot of friends. That's not to say she's not _friendly_ ; she's quite personable and got a big dose of Dean's charm. She's just shown no interest in most of the other students. She still hangs out with Finn and Riley from their old play group, but both of them go to different schools.

One day, they get an irate call from Mer's school demanding their immediate presence in the principal's office. Dean jokes all the way there about what Mer could've done, reminiscing about the multitude of times he ended up in the principal's office growing up. Sam bears it with an indulgent smile because he knows inside Dean is freaking out.

Dean stares at the principal, who looks at them over steepled fingers with down-turned lips and hard eyes.

"You wanna run that by me again?” Dean asks dangerously.

“Mis-ter Winchester,” the principal says condescendingly, and Sam feels the way Dean bristles, his emotions sharp and acerbic. Sam can't say he doesn't feel the same way. “Mr. Anders is an upstanding member of the community. He's highly placed in the local government, and—”

“And that never stopped someone from being a fuckhead,” Dean growls angrily. Sam feels a headache building behind his eyes, Dean's anger spilling beyond his control. Spiraling would be more accurate, Dean spinning down into a vortex of rage.

“Now, Mister Winchester, when your daughter starts spreading lies—” Dean gets up so fast his chair topples over. The principal has the good sense to look frightened and shrink back.

“You call my daughter a liar again, _Principal_ Thorp, and I will bring the fear of the PTA down on you.”

Dean stalks out, and Sam lets him go, keeps his eyes glued to the Principal. The man looks back at him with beady eyes, sweat collecting on his upper lip. Sam feels a darkness stirring in him and doesn't push it down, lets it rise up and fill him, projecting it so even the least gifted human has to feel it. Without a word Sam unfolds himself from the chair, making sure to pull himself up to his full height. Thorp reeks of fear. Of prey, cornered and hopeless. Sam smirks and saunters out. The door closes by itself behind him.

They take Mer home with them. She's quiet and withdrawn. She goes into her room and wraps herself around Mer-Bear.

It's not long before Mer climbs into their bed, inconsolable. She never actually tells them what happened, but they know. Dean waits until she's cried herself to sleep before calling the police with an anonymous tip. By the time law enforcement arrives at the perfect house on the perfect lane of the perfect family, Dan's body is room temperature and his outstanding-member-of-society-politician-stepfather is long gone. For all their safeguards against the supernatural, Sam and Dean are powerless in the face of human cruelty.

Mer never confides in another teacher ever again. She's her father's child in that way: burn her once and you won't get a second chance (unless you're family, which is a whole different can of messed up), so all the teachers that come after have to bear the burden of the ones that came before. Many of them pick up on this and resent her. But a few teachers understand. Usually the older ones who have seen and been through it all. They watch the students, and they see what's hidden under long tee-shirts and fleeting glances. These teachers, the ones who see, keep careful track of the students Mer takes interest in, and act accordingly.

Mer collects the broken, the neglected and the un-championed. She never talks about it—not even to Dean, Sam or Whit—but it doesn't take long for all of them to figure it out. She takes them in and gives them shelter. Some of them take refuge and flourish with the nourishment of her smile and indefatigable personality, then gently fade away, finding their place in the world. But others stick around—Max and Viv and Dane and Chelsea practically move in with them—and are Mer's most dedicated friends.

For their part, Sam and Dean have more blow-up air mattresses between them than a summer camp, but no one ever gets turned away. When Mer comes home with an unexpected guest, there's always a place laid down without question or fuss. They quickly learn which kids need a hug and which ones need to sit at the end of the table, as far away from the adults as possible.

“Give me your tired, your poor,” Sam whispers in Dean's ear one night, “your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”

One day, Dean brings home a friend, a big guy named Mike who has a rainbow of colors and pictures on his arms and a fearsome looking scar slicing through his left eyebrow. Mer studies him, head cocked to one side, eyes narrowed. Mike looks back calmly. Sam gets the feeling he's missing something.

Abruptly, Mer's face shifts from wary to wholly welcoming and she attaches herself to Mike's leg and makes him drag her around the house, which he does with a big, booming laugh. After that Mike shows up with frequency. He speaks to Mer's friends in gentle tones, respects their unspoken wishes, and gradually gains their trust. They love his tattoos and they don't care about his scar.

It takes Sam way longer than it should to realize Mike is a social worker. He feels like an idiot. Dean laughs at him, bruising Sam's ego, and apologizes with a sloppy blowjob on the floor of their room.

8.

Mer is eight when she has her first kiss, and it's quite possibly _the most traumatic thing that's ever happened_. Sam has to take drastic measures to keep Dean from flying off into a rage and killing one of her closest friends. Finn's dad John, who'd volunteered to drive Mer home early after the fiasco left both participants in tears, tries to explain what happened, but he takes one look at Dean's face and beats a hasty retreat. He has to come back to retrieve Finn, who looks bemused by the whole situation. Sam thinks the kid better get used to it if he plans on dating women when he grows up.

Between Mer's gasping, shuddering sobs and ear-splitting wails, the story unfolds as such:

Mer and Jer had been hanging out in the community center's park, taking a break from the dancing and general merriment. Jer was lording over Mer because he was older, and Mer had decided the best way to get back at Jer was...to kiss him. Right on the lips. And it had been nice and good and wonderful until Mer remembered that Jer belonged to Lissa. And then it was horribly, despicably, unimaginably _wrong._ She had betrayed Lissa and that made her the worstest person in forever!

They take turns consoling her, promising she didn't irreparably damage Jer and Lissa's eternal bliss and that everything will be alright. When she's finally asleep, hiccoughing a little with each breath, they stoically close her door, troop into their room, and collapse on the floor, crying with laughter.

“Could you imagine— _Mer_ and _Jer,_ ” Dean gasps.

When they can breathe again, they call Whit at the hospital's nurse's station to tell her what happened. She censures them for not being sensitive to Mer's plight, but her frequent fits of laughter don't earn her any points.

***

Whit takes off for a couple of weeks in October. She doesn't tell anyone where she's going or what she's going to do. She turns off her cell and falls off the map until the day she strolls into the house with a bag of rock candy for Sam and Mer.

There's something different about her, but when anyone asks she just gives them a secret smile and shrugs it off.

9.

Mer is nine when Whit gets married to her ex-rehab nurse, Damien van Petten. It's just them and Damien's two sisters at the wedding, with Missouri officiating. (Unsurprisingly, there is no mention of Whit obeying anyone in her vows, and Missouri wisely does not refer to them as “Mr. And Mrs.” anything.) Dean's signature as witness is shaky because he had something in his eye. That's all. And his hands still aren't shaking when he hugs her, long and hard, after the 'I dos.'

But Damien is a decent guy: he doesn't even flinch when Whit tells him they're moving in the Carver's old house right across the street. She can't leave Sam, Dean, or Mer. He knows Dean saved Whit from a bad situation and she's practically Mer's mom, and he's down with that.

They help Whit pack up her stuff and move, but it still hurts. The house feels quiet and big without her, and it takes them a long time to get used to it. If they ever do.

\---

Sam has a disturbing dream during a solo hunt in Louisiana. He chalks it up to the VooDoo Priest who'd looked at him—through him—and told him the world would scream his name in anger. That's enough to unsettle anyone. He wakes up panting, heart racing, and terrified for Dean. He can't shake the feeling that there's something threatening after Dean, looking for him, wanting him dead. He doesn't calm down until he feels the gentle brush of Dean's mind, sleepy and content. Sam withdraws and forces himself to calm down, vowing to finish this case up as soon as he can.

He has the dream every night until he gets home.

10.

Mer is ten when she kills her first supernatural creature. A skin-walker attacks her class on a field trip to the river. Mer only has a 10-inch silver-plated Bowie knife and her wits. Luckily, Sam and Dean have been honing her wits and her (hypothetical) hunting skills for years and she's quick on the draw.

Mer throws her knife before her teacher can so much as scream. The knife flies true and embeds straight through the grotesque bear-thing's heart. The 'walker dies with a gurgling cry, tripping over its feet and tumbling to the ground. It rolls a couple of times before coming to rest, dead as a doornail, at their feet looking completely human.

"What did you just do?" Mrs. Lampry screeches. "What...what just _happened?"_ Mer looks down at the body in horror.

"The dads are going to _kill me._ "

\---

"Dean, calm down."

"That THING attacked my kid!"

"Dean—"

"She's not leaving the house ever again."

"Dean, that's not—"

"We can home school her."

"We are not home schooling Mer," Sam groans, flopping down on the bed. He's really dreading the first time Mer comes home with a boy.

"You heard her, it went right for her, do not pass go, do not eat the teacher! And don't try to tell me it's not because she's special." Sam regrets ever posing that theory. He should have KNOWN Dean would react this way.

"So we get her protection," he points out reasonably. He's sure that between himself, Missouri, and Bobby they can come up with a charm or hex bag or something that will mask Mer from the supernatural nasties.

"I am not tattooing my kid!" Dean protests. Sam arches an eyebrow because that would not have been his first thought. In fact, he can't imagine a world where that would be anyone's first thought. A slow blush creeps over Dean's neck, a sure sign that he's hiding something.

"Dean."

"What?" Dean asks nonchalantly. Sam purses his lips and glares. "The place in Chicago said to bring her back when she's 15."

"You tried to get Mer _tattooed?!"_

"Not...not really?" Dean offers weakly. "Look, it was right after the demon, and I was—"

"She was _six months old!"_

"I didn't go through with it!"

They stare at each other for a long minute until Dean's lips twitch and Sam starts cracking up. Sam pulls Dean down on top of him and they both laugh until their sides ache.

"I was thinking a hex bag or a charm," Sam says once they've calmed down. Dean hums and noses into the side of Sam's neck.

Two weeks later, Mer gets a silver necklace courtesy of Bobby. It's a combination of three of the oldest protection symbols they know, a beautifully simple series of lines with a world of meaning behind them.

11.

Mer is eleven when Damien gets a job offer in Louisiana and Whit refuses to go. She says the Winchesters are her family and Damien knew that when he married her. This sparks epic fights and accusations of infidelity. Whit practically moves back into her old room. Mer gets misty-eyed whenever she sees one of them, sniffling piteously at the unrest and hugging Mer Bear to her chest.

After a long discussion, Dean and Sam sit Damien down, line three bottles of liquor in front of him, and explain to him that the Things That Go Bump in the Night Are Real. Oh, and all three of the Winchesters? Psychic. (Dean admits this grudgingly. Sam feels unnecessarily smug that he FINALLY got Dean to say it out loud.)

Damien thinks they're both crazy, but he indulges them with a nervous smile. Mer comes home from soccer practice, eyes them all critically, and tells them Damien still doesn't believe. Dean asks her for a glass of water and Damien stares as a glass floats from the cabinet to the sink, fills with water, and sails neatly into Dean's hand. Mer smirks and flounces off to find Whit, who's hiding in her house pending the outcome of The Talk. Damien starts in on the Tequila like it's his job.

"Let me tell you why Whit won't leave," Dean says grimly, taking a shot for fortification. Sam can feel how much Dean doesn't want to be doing this, but he soldiers on regardless.

>   
> _Dean got a call from Bobby about a family in Iowa who'd been calling local psychics about a problem and suddenly fallen out of communication. They'd complained of strange noises in the night, tapping on the windows, rustling in the bushes, that had escalated to randomly slamming doors, scrabbling feet, misplaced knickknacks and rearranged furniture. Dean agreed to take a look, had packed up Mer and hit the road._
> 
>  _It took him four days to get to Iowa. Those wasted days still haunt him sometimes._
> 
>  _When he got there he left Mer sleeping in the Impala a block away and hid his shotgun under his jacket. The front door swung open, unlocked. The house was unnaturally quiet. Three steps in and the copper smell of blood reached him._
> 
>  _Dean cautiously made his way through the darkened house, senses on alert. There were pictures of a happy family spread over the house, a mother, father, two kids. An older daughter at her college graduation, and a younger son rolling his eyes at the camera on his first day of high school. Dean wanted them all to be okay so badly._
> 
>  _He heard something scurry across the floor above him and tracked the movement with his shotgun. That scurry definitely wasn't human. Dean cautiously made his way upstairs, the stench of spilled blood getting stronger with every step. Light flickered under a door, movement from within, and Dean pushed it open._
> 
>  _The decimated body of what had been an older man was pushed in a corner, several days into decomp, most of the flesh picked away from the bone. Two gray-skinned creatures were hunched over a body apiece, one of them smaller than the others. Bile rose in Dean's throat and he ruthlessly suppressed it, but he couldn't forget the happy family photos he'd seen downstairs, those faces superimposed on the corpses. A choked whimper caught his attention._
> 
>  _In the far corner was a woman, still alive and unharmed though so scared the press of her emotions sliced through Dean's shields and almost drove him from the room. Another of the creatures was pressed close to her, sniffing deeply, purring in contentment. Her eyes were shut tight, and she held herself rigidly away from the thing. Occasionally, a wet sound would come from one of the corpses and she would flinch; the creature's purring would increase every time. Dean swore to himself as he realized the creature seemed to be feeding off her fear and despair. Likely had been for a while now. A sickening picture came together of a family terrorized, their emotions carefully cultivated by these creatures until they were of no more use and then...a two-fold attack for a two-fold hunger. Hatred welled up in Dean, clear and bright. These fuckers were going down._
> 
>  _The pump-action of the shotgun echoed loudly in the room. The three creatures immediately spun around, spines on their backs coming up in defense. They growled at Dean and he felt a wave of manufactured terror wash over him. He grit his teeth against it and fought back, concentrating on his anger._
> 
>  _"Come and get me, you slimy gray fuckers!" The first one lunged at him, and Dean blasted it out of the air. It went down with a yelp, tumbling to the ground and bleeding thick yellow. The second one hit Dean too fast to reload, so he swung the butt of the gun around and struck it in the face. The third he shot at instinctively, gratified to hear the animal yelp from it. The woman in the corner was screaming, her hands clapped over her ears and curled as small as she could get, which suited Dean fine. One less thing for him to worry about._
> 
>  _The creature he'd stunned climbed to his feet and attacked. The shotgun blast slowed it down, but didn't stop it. Its claws ripped into Dean's shoulder and propelled him into the hall. Dean jammed the gun between its slobbering, razor-like teeth. He struggled to avoid its claws, trying to reach for the gun at his back. The creature got in one last dig as Dean emptied a clip into it._
> 
>  _He stumbled, bleeding, into the room. One of the creatures was dead, half its face missing from the shotgun blast. The other was writhing on the ground trying to drag itself towards the civilian huddled in the corner. Dean changed clips and put three in the back of its head._
> 
>  _"Brandon. Brandon. Come on Brandon, you start high school tomorrow. Brandon, please..." Dean stared at the distraught woman on the other side of the room cradling her younger brother's body against her chest as she gently rocked him, eyes glazed over. He tried to imagine what she'd been through, days trapped in this room with these creatures, her parents and brother being... Dean suppressed his gag reflex._
> 
>  _"Hey," he said quietly, kneeling before her. "I'm Dean." She stared at him without seeing him, and Dean wished that Sam was there to help._

"Whit spent five days with those things. She got to watch her entire family die in the worst ways. I think taking care of Mer is the only thing that kept her together for a while."

Damien finishes his drink in one gulp and heads over to his own house in somber silence. Dean and Sam continue to drink, Dean's memories heavy between them. Sam doesn't try to say anything, just keeps Dean's glass full.

Sam has a nightmare that night, something that involves someone he loves in imminent danger. And Sam just...can't...save him. He has the nightmare the next night too. And the next. And the next and the next until he forgets a time where terror wasn't part of his dreamscape.

12.

For all their joking and preparation when she was six, Mer actually gets in trouble for fighting for the first time when she's twelve. Some new transfer kid apparently wasn't told that you Do Not Mess With Mary Winchester And The People She Loves. Or maybe he did, and he's trying to prove he's a badass.

Either way, he ends up with a bloody nose and a healthy fear of Mer.

When Sam and Dean arrive to pick her up, the new principal smiles politely at them and bids them take the weekend to talk things over with Mary, no need for this to go on her permanent record. Sam nods to her, because she gets Mer and it's nice to finally have a principal on their side. The principal smiles and shuffles her papers. There on the top is a three-day suspension for the other kid. Dean grins and they all go out for ice cream.

***

One day a couple of young hunters stop by their place for some Special Winchester anti-demon rock salt and advice. As they ride off into the night Sam cracks a joke that they're becoming Bobby. Dean looks at him blankly, steadily, then disappears into the house and Sam realizes they aren't _becoming_ Bobby. _They already are._

He presses Dean into the mattress, reminds them both that they're still young and full of life. Dean lets Sam do what he wants and in the aftermath, while their bodies are still sweat-slick and sticky, tells Sam that he's happy. Sam grins goofily up at the ceiling because he is too. (The nightmares won't last forever.)

13.

Mer turns evil when she's thirteen. From one day to the next it's like someone flipped a switch. She gets irritated when they ask about her plans. She sighs, deeply annoyed that she has to deal with her _parents_ and what, exactly, had she done to deserve THESE parents?

Dean wonders how “Do you have plans for Thursday?” degenerated into a screaming match that had their next door neighbors calling over to check on them, Mer sobbing in her room, Sam throwing knives outside, and Dean blinking at his empty living room. Dean thinks his daughter has been possessed. When he brings this up to Whit, she sighs and says something about hormones and teenagers and surviving. It sounds more plausible than 'possessed by evil.'

Dean sneaks into her room that night and sprinkles her with holy water just to check.

He can't figure out what's wrong with his kid. She sulks and answers Whit's questions grudgingly. She thinks Dean is quite possibly the dumbest person on the Earth because he doesn't know _anything._ And Sam...they're like a feedback loop of anger and defensiveness. It's like Sam and Dad all over again, with every word between them an invitation for a spectacular blow up. Seriously, Dean has watched "Hello, good morning" turn into "You're not really my dad!" in 4.8 words.

\---

Sometimes, Sam scares himself. At first it's small things. The Hunt takes on new meaning and urgency: he once pinned Dean to the ground and kissed him hard, flooding his mind with arousal and need until they both came, panting, next to the remains of a rougarou. He feels alive when they're stalking the creatures of the night, finds himself slipping into a persona that understands what they do, what drives them. It makes him a very good hunter.

His dark, twisting dreams become clearer too. They go from nebulous impressions of danger and death to recurrent images of Dean in imminent danger. Sometimes Sam finds Dean on the floor in a pool of blood, already dead. Sometimes Sam gets there in time to see the murderer leaning over his brother, knife in hand (Sam gets the impression that he knows this person, had trusted them, and often wakes with a sense of betrayal). There are variations too, one where Sam gets to watch a bullet slice through Dean's brain, a neat round hole appearing in the middle of Dean's head. The version Sam hates most is when Dean looks at him right before the bullet hits him, eyes pleading and sad.

In all of them Dean dies.

Sam wakes up flushed with adrenalin and, more often than not, ready for a fight. To kill, to protect. Dean learns to love the hot, possessive morning sex Sam uses to assure himself that Dean is alive and whole beside him. There are times when Sam feels like he's losing himself, and everything rubs him wrong except for Dean.

Dean is Sam's anchor. When the world disappears in a red-black haze, Dean shines through as clear as any sun. Sam wants to keep Dean with him all the time. He recognizes this is selfish and impossible, not to mention unhealthy. It doesn't stop the thoughts, or the want.

He finds himself jealous of Whit and hating Mer for all the attention Dean pays them. He knows that's wrong too and strives to be better, but it's hard to fight irrationality. But he survives. He lives with it, deals with it, does right by them both. He loves them intensely, his world and his heart. He would never do anything to hurt them.

Except somewhere along the way, it stops being _wrong_ and becomes habit. The reasons he represses, denies, and ignores are forgotten in the vaults of his mind. And when Mer is particularly vicious and biting and Sam wants nothing more than to get as far away from her as possible an insidious, dark voice whispers that maybe, just maybe, he shouldn't have to share.

14.

When Mer is fourteen, she gets invited to the middle school dance. By a boy.

“Oh my God, I need Whit!” Mer wails.

“You look fine,” Dean says with the utmost sincerity.

“Fine?” Mer says contemptuously. “I look fine? I don't want to look fine! I want to look HOT.” Dean's expression darkens dangerously. “Maybe not hot. Mature? Classy.”

Dean's prepared to banish Mer to her room for the rest of her life when Whit's screeching tones assault his eardrums. “Losechester! What are you doing to that poor girl? Go away. Shoo! For a gay man you have horrible taste.” The bathroom door slams shut in his face.

“I'm not gay!” Dean yells at the wood. He stomps off to make out with Sam. Mer deserves the trauma of seeing her parents humping against the kitchen counter.

“Dean,” Sam says against his lips. Dean growls and goes back in, but Sam pushes him away, his attention elsewhere. Dean reluctantly disengages and turns to see what...

“I told you,” Whit whispers smugly to Mer, who blushes and ducks her head. She's wearing a blue dress that flows as she walks, bare in the back save for the laces. She's got on a light dusting of make-up, suitable for her age and not overdoing it. Sam nudges him, but Dean just gapes. He can't really breathe. Or think.

“You look beautiful,” Sam says sincerely. Mer grins at him and blushes harder.

“Thanks,” she mumbles bashfully. It's quite possibly the first exchange they've had in a long time that doesn't degenerate into a fight.

Then Lissa bursts in, looking shiny and older than she should in a skimpy sequined dress, followed by Mer's date—who Dean and Sam have already terrorized, but a refresher course can't hurt—and it's a flurry of picture-taking and eye-rolling and not-veiled threats until the kids sweep out of the house and to the car.

“Oh, poor baby,” Whit says, amusement lacing her words. Dean looks up and realizes at some point he slid down to the floor.

“Dean?” Sam prods gently.

“She's all grown up,” Dean manages to choke out. The world swims, and two bodies settle on either side of him.

“Yeah,” Whit agrees, sounding both proud and depressed. “She really is.”

15.

Mer is fifteen when she gets her first tattoo.

Whit is...not yet forty and of the opinion that tattoos are beyond her. But they all agree that Mer needs some kind of permanent protection, and Mer is a little bit leery of the process regardless of the fact she's been asking when she gets HER tattoo since she realized Sam and Dean were not born with the matching symbols on their chests. They've been telling her soon, soon, soon until her fifteenth birthday when she answered the "Are you sure-sure?" question with a resounding "YES! (As long as Whit gets one too.)"

Which is how they find themselves at a well known Hunter way station-slash-tattoo-parlor in Chicago where the artists imbue the ink with special herbs and ritualistic blessings. For better or worse they let Mer pick the design and she's been calling and e-mailing Bobby for almost a month now. Which is good, because she sure as hell isn't consulting any of her parents.

They're in the tattoo shop looking at sample books when Whit nervously broaches the subject of what, exactly, is going on their skin. Mer glances between the three of them and then shows, much to everyone's surprise, Sam the design first, biting her nail and watching him with worried eyes. Sam studies the interlocking loops and lines with a critical eye. It's a variation of the symbol on Mer's necklace, tweaked—he assumes—for tattooing.

"This...this is great." Mer beams and bounces on the balls of her feet. It looks solid, none of the properties of the three symbols will void their protective qualities, but Sam's not the expert. "You're sure it works?"

"Yes," Mer says, disgruntled, snatching the paper away. She frowns down at it as if second guessing herself and Sam mentally sighs. He wishes he didn't have to walk on eggshells with her all the time.

"I...look, it's beautiful, I just want to make sure it does what it should," he explains lamely. He ignores Dean's muttered, "Way to go, champ."

"Bobby says it's good," Mer mumbles, but she seems deflated, her former enthusiasm missing. Whit gently coaxes the sketch away from Mer so she can see for herself. After all, she agreed to this insanity as well.

"Oh, Mer-bear, this is gorgeous," Whit breathes, genuinely pleased though the comment seems to be directed at Sam more than Mer. Still, Mer perks right up and starts explaining what each part of the new symbol means to Whit and how they interact with one another. Dean grins at his kid but fazes the lecture out. Sam's paying attention because Mer sounds like she knows what she's talking about as opposed to regurgitating something Bobby told her. Like she understands the history and properties and theory behind the tattoo.

"Where does it go?" Whit asks. Sam and Dean exchange a look when Mer blushes bright red and pulls Whit down to her. She whispers something in Whit's ear and refuses to look at either of her Dads.

"Oh. OH! Right." Whit straightens up and Sam would swear _she's_ blushing now.

"Whiiiiit," Mer moans, hiding her face in her hand.

"You boys hungry? I saw a diner down the street," Whit orders, baring her teeth. "You could find some food there or something. Anything." Sam's confused for a few seconds before his brain puts together the puzzle pieces and he realizes that this is a tattoo designed for _women_ to be placed in an inconspicuous and meaningful spot. Which means for it to be most effective it has to go...yeah, food sounds awesome.

"What? I'm not missing—" Dean starts, but Sam's elbow connects with his stomach and cuts his protests off.

"We'll see you in an hour," Sam says brightly, dragging Dean after him.

"Dude, what the hell?" Dean yelps, but lets Sam manhandle him. Sam rolls his eyes when Dean shimmies his hips so Sam's hand slips down to his ass. "Seriously though, I'm not going to miss my kid getting her first tat."

"You say first like you expect her to get more," Sam says, nudging Dean towards the car, "in which case you can be there for the second one."

"But—"

"Dean. It's a female-oriented symbol. Designed to protect the feminine. So it would make sense to put it in a _certain area._ You know?” There are times when Sam thinks Dean is the densest person on the planet. He stares at Sam with blank incomprehension. Luckily, Sam can explain this in a very simple way that Dean can't help but understand: sex. Sam hooks his fingers through Dean's belt loops and pulls them together, the lower halves of their bodies pressed together. Come to think of it, maybe they should hold off on the food for later... “You _know?”_

He feels the moment Dean gets it, his body stiffening and his face flushing pink. Sam grins at him because sometimes Dean pulls off being a little bit innocent.

\---

The tattoo messes with Sam's perception for a while. Mer sometimes fades out of his consciousness without him realizing. At first it's just when he's angry, the dark part of him taking over, and he chalks that up to instinct. It would make sense if he shut Mer out so as not to hurt her. Or, more disturbingly, if her new tattoo blocked him for the same reason.

Later, he realizes with a sense of foreboding that he sometimes goes days without sensing Mer and doesn't notice. She still feels him, though there are times when she frowns at him, brow creased in concentration, and Sam thinks maybe she's trying to reach him but can't.

His dreams come back, more vivid than ever, and there's one that makes his throat close in fear. In it, Sam can taste sulfur in the air, smell the fresh scent of Dean's blood as some indistinguishable person crouches menacingly over him. Sam makes a noise and the figure turns, knife held to Dean's throat, gun pointed at Sam. He wakes up before he sees the person's face every time until the one time he doesn't. Until the figure turns and he sees a sickening, twisted smile stretched over familiar lips.

"Uncle Sam."

Sam bolts upright in bed, sweating. Mer is standing at the foot of their bed looking uncomfortable, clutching her raggedy stuffed bear to her chest. Sam can only stare at her, trying to wipe the memory of her blood-coated knife from his mind.

"You were having a bad dream, but I couldn't touch it." There are times when Mer and Sam can step into each other's dreams and calm them. It usually happens when they're not trying, when one of them has been interrupted by the other and reaches out instinctively. "It felt bad."

"It was nothing," Sam says dismissively. His voice comes out flat and disinterested. He's struggling to keep everything inside, to send Mer away so he can deal with what he's seen. Her lips press together and her eyes flatten out in teenage displeasure.

"Whatever. Have a _great_ night." She doesn't slam the door closed on account of her father, still dead to the world. Sam stumbles out of bed and throws up in the toilet, his emotions spilling out as his body rebels. Dean groans on the bed and Sam clamps down on his emotions, turning it all in. He's trying to process the unthinkable. Mer would never...could never...

But there's a voice in him that whispers he's right, that these aren't nightmares, they're visions and these things will come to pass as surely as the rising of the sun and the turning of the Earth. He tests the raw truth in the privacy of his own mind:

Mer is going to kill her father.

Sam lays in bed trying to convince himself otherwise. This is Dean's daughter. She would never do such a thing. She loves Dean; Sam can feel the truth of that himself, how deep their connection goes. She would never even contemplate such an action.

Except. Except, except things change. People change. Things happen, people fight, people make bad choices, and nowhere is it said a child has unconditional love for its parents. Who knows what forces could drive her towards such a future?

Sam shakes it off. It's ridiculous. (It's not.) He'll give her the benefit of the doubt. He can't do otherwise. He loves her, loves Dean, and it's only a dream...

16.

When Mer is sixteen, her relationship with Sam unravels in alarming ways. It starts with the fights. Dean feels like he's watching reruns of Sam and Dad, butting heads about ridiculous things they don't really care about. Dean finds himself playing mediator to a dispute that can't be won because they aren't fighting about anything.

Dean sits in the kitchen and wonders where the hell it all went wrong.

“I fucking hate you!” Dean winces.

“You can hate me all you want, but you WILL watch your language in this house!” Dean buries his face in his hands.

“Fuck you, _Uncle Sam._ ”

Dean wonders where his adorable kid went, replaced by this moody, snappish girl he doesn't recognize. When it stopped being Sam & Dean & Mer and turned into Sam versus Mer, with Dean a precariously balanced Switzerland. Where Atta went. Dean pours himself a drink and escapes the mindless anger outside. He pulls his cigarettes out of their hiding place and lights up, because if he's ever allowed to smoke now is it.

He stares up at the stars, smoke curling up over his head. He hears footsteps approach, but he doesn't react, just tries to remember how to blow smoke rings. It's been a while. Someone settles into the chair on the other side of the table but neither of them talk. Dean stubs out his butt and lights up a second.

"I'm sorry." Dean lets his chair fall down to the ground with the thump. Mer is like Sam in that she'll try to make Dean talk about things. The difference is she can usually get him to talk whereas Sam's generally shit out of luck.

"Yeah," Dean breathes, because he has to say something. She means it. That's one thing about being...like he is. He can tell when she's lying, and she's not. Her fights with Sam make her miserable in the aftermath, something she seems to forget while anger burns bright. He'd ground her, but it wouldn't do any good because she's only half the problem. "I'd like it if you tried harder."

Mer huffs and runs her fingers through her hair. Her lips are pressed together in frustration, a tell she picked up from Sam and it just makes Dean hurt more. He can feel her hormones and emotions bubbling through her, each one flaring brightly before subsiding as another takes its place. It gives Dean a headache, trying to keep up. Teenagers.

She settles on, "I don't think it's about trying harder." Dean takes a deep drag of his cigarette, the burn crawling down his chest. It's not enough to mask the other pain he's carrying around.

"You can always—"

"He hates me." It's like a punch to the gut the way she says it, flat and certain. Even Mer winces, as if it physically hurts her to give voice to it. Dean can feel sadness and anger and a kid's desire to be accepted, approved of, by her parents rise up like a tidal wave. It chokes him because he's so fucking proud of her, of the person he's watching her become. She should never have any doubts about that.

"He doesn't—"

"Dad." Her voice is soft and serious and far too mature. Dean looks over at her, his kid. She's small, huddled in her chair, knees tucked to her chest and stretching out one of Dean's sweatshirts. She stares up at the stars but she doesn't see them. The lights of the house glint off of unshed tears. "He hates me."

Dean looks away, a lump in his throat, because she's right. Sometimes—more and more often—Sam really does hate her. Dean can taste it, bitter and dark, and it eats at him. Eats at them both. Dean takes another drag of his cigarette and they sit there, father and daughter, both wondering what to do.

17.

When Mer is seventeen, the world as she knows it ends.


End file.
